Certificate
Course Outline
Domain 1—The Process of Auditing Information Systems (14%)
Deliver audit services in accordance with IT audit standards to assist the organisation in protecting and controlling information systems.
- 1.1 Develop and implement a risk-based IT audit strategy in compliance with IT audit standards to ensure coverage of key areas.
- 1.2 Plan specific audits to determine whether information systems are adequately protected, controlled, and delivering value to the organisation.
- 1.3 Conduct audits in line with IT audit standards to achieve planned audit objectives.
- 1.4 Report audit findings and make recommendations to key stakeholders to communicate results and drive change where necessary.
- 1.5 Conduct follow-up activities or prepare status reports to ensure management takes appropriate actions in a timely manner.
Domain 2—Governance and Management of IT (14%)
Provide assurance that the necessary leadership, organisational structure, and processes are in place to achieve objectives and support the organisation’s strategy.
- 2.1 Evaluate the effectiveness of the IT governance structure to determine whether IT decisions, direction, and performance align with the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 2.2 Evaluate IT organisational structure and human resources (personnel) management to assess their support for the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 2.3 Evaluate the IT strategy, including its direction, and the processes for its development, approval, implementation, and maintenance, to ensure alignment with the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 2.4 Evaluate the organisation’s IT policies, standards, and procedures, along with the processes for their development, approval, implementation, maintenance, and monitoring, to determine whether they support the IT strategy and comply with regulatory and legal requirements.
- 2.5 Evaluate the adequacy of the quality management system to determine whether it supports the organisation’s strategies and objectives in a cost-effective manner.
- 2.6 Evaluate IT management and monitoring of controls (e.g., continuous monitoring, quality assurance) to ensure compliance with the organisation’s policies, standards, and procedures.
- 2.7 Evaluate IT resource investment, utilisation, and allocation practices, including prioritisation criteria, to assess alignment with the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 2.8 Evaluate IT contracting strategies and policies, as well as contract management practices, to determine whether they support the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 2.9 Evaluate risk management practices to determine whether the organisation’s IT-related risks are properly managed.
- 2.10 Evaluate monitoring and assurance practices to determine whether the board and executive management receive sufficient and timely information regarding IT performance.
- 2.11 Evaluate the organisation’s business continuity plan to assess its ability to maintain essential business operations during an IT disruption.
Domain 3—Information Systems Acquisition, Development, and Implementation (19%)
Provide assurance that practices for the acquisition, development, testing, and implementation of information systems meet the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 3.1 Evaluate the business case for proposed investments in information systems acquisition, development, maintenance, and subsequent retirement to determine whether it meets business objectives.
- 3.2 Evaluate project management practices and controls to determine whether business requirements are achieved in a cost-effective manner while managing organisational risks.
- 3.3 Conduct reviews to determine whether a project is progressing in accordance with project plans, is adequately supported by documentation, and whether status reporting is accurate.
- 3.4 Evaluate controls for information systems during the requirements, acquisition, development, and testing phases to ensure compliance with the organisation’s policies, standards, procedures, and applicable external requirements.
- 3.5 Evaluate the readiness of information systems for implementation and migration into production to determine whether project deliverables, controls, and the organisation’s requirements are met.
- 3.6 Conduct post-implementation reviews of systems to determine whether project deliverables, controls, and the organisation’s requirements are met.
Domain 4—Information Systems Operations, Maintenance and Support (23%)
Provide assurance that processes for information systems operations, maintenance, and support meet the organisation’s strategies and objectives.
- 4.1 Conduct periodic reviews of information systems to determine whether they continue to meet the organisation’s objectives.
- 4.2 Evaluate service level management practices to determine whether the level of service provided by internal and external service providers is clearly defined and effectively managed.
- 4.3 Evaluate third-party management practices to determine whether the provider adheres to the levels of controls expected by the organisation.
- 4.4 Evaluate operations and end-user procedures to determine whether scheduled and non-scheduled processes are managed to completion.
- 4.5 Evaluate the information systems maintenance process to determine whether it is effectively controlled and continues to support the organisation’s objectives.
- 4.6 Evaluate data administration practices to assess the integrity and optimisation of databases.
- 4.7 Evaluate the use of capacity and performance monitoring tools and techniques to determine whether IT services meet the organisation’s objectives.
- 4.8 Evaluate problem and incident management practices to determine whether incidents, problems, or errors are recorded, analysed, and resolved in a timely manner.
- 4.9 Evaluate change, configuration, and release management practices to determine whether scheduled and unscheduled changes to the organisation’s production environment are adequately controlled and documented.
- 4.10 Evaluate the adequacy of backup and restore provisions to determine the availability of information required to resume processing.
- 4.11 Evaluate the organisation’s disaster recovery plan to determine whether it enables the recovery of IT processing capabilities in the event of a disaster.
Domain 5—Protection of Information Assets (30%)
Provide assurance that the organisation’s security policies, standards, procedures, and controls ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information assets.
- 5.1 Evaluate information security policies, standards, and procedures for completeness and alignment with generally accepted practices.
- 5.2 Evaluate the design, implementation, and monitoring of system and logical security controls to verify the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.
- 5.3 Evaluate the design, implementation, and monitoring of data classification processes and procedures to ensure alignment with the organisation’s policies, standards, procedures, and applicable external requirements.
- 5.4 Evaluate the design, implementation, and monitoring of physical access and environmental controls to determine whether information assets are adequately safeguarded.
- 5.5 Evaluate the processes and procedures used to store, retrieve, transport, and dispose of information assets (e.g., backup media, offsite storage, hard copy/print data, and softcopy media) to determine whether information assets are adequately safeguarded.
Requirements
There are no mandatory prerequisites for this course. However, ISACA requires a minimum of five years of professional experience in information systems auditing, control, or security to qualify for full certification. You may sit for the CISA examination before meeting ISACA’s experience requirements; however, the CISA qualification will only be awarded once you fulfil the experience criteria. Our trainers recommend that delegates obtain the CISA certification as early as possible in their careers to apply globally accepted IT auditing practices in their daily professional activities.
Testimonials (1)
Overview of Risk topics and preparing for exam